


His day, his move

by cousingreg



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Violence, Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:34:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29232348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cousingreg/pseuds/cousingreg
Summary: “So, what’s our next move?” He leans in and asks with the excitement of a puppy, but within, he’s playing a chess game. Mapping out all the next movements, his own in turn. And he thinks of Tom, and how maybe he has a place for him, too, after this is all over. He’s going to hate him now, but that’s okay. He can take it. And Tom can’t hate him forever, Greg’s already tested that theory. In fact he’s already tested quite a few.“I can take a lot in terms of psychological pain.”
Relationships: Greg Hirsch & Tom Wambsgans
Kudos: 5





	His day, his move

**Author's Note:**

> I love the idea of Greg being a 'villain' from the beginning, but I also love the idea of Greg slowly evolving into one. Both are good. Both I love.

He smokes a blunt in the airplane bathroom before they land. A big fat one rolled into cigarette paper, so that if anyone were to see it would look like just that, a cigarette, but that’s the thing, no one’s going to look. Greg’s in an airplane bathroom privately owned by his billionaire great-uncle who is an asshole and all around terrible person. His cousin, Kendall sits outside, their plan set in motion. A turning point that they can never go back on.

He inhales deeply.

When he was younger his mom used to make up all kinds of excuses for the anger in his father’s tone. The stomping of feet on bare wooded floors. His harsh words and even harsher yelling. He never touched him, only a hard grip on his arm once, but other than he never hurt him, not physically. Everything was words and manipulations, and it was only ever salved by his mother’s warm hugs and his maid’s warm cookies, Sandra. That was up until they lost their money, gone into debt and cut off from his grandfather to the bare minimum.

His father was so angry.

“We’re Hirsch’s! Get it to fucking together Marianne!” His words are pointed at his mother, the door just a crack open, him but nine years old as he peeked through and waiting.

He watched as he slapped her across the face. Her nodding and apologizing, going down, only to look up when he wasn’t watching, eyes like a viper’s. A plan forming in her mind, but she never acted on it. Not until he was twelve and thirsty in the middle of the night. His arm aching from his ‘accident.’ The first and only. He watched through a crack door as his father flew off of the railing and snapped his neck along that same bare wooden floor.

His mom’s sweaty and bloody face watching from up afar. Her eyes locking with his until she ran down there and held him in his arms, whispering that, “He’ll never hurt us again.” Her hands firms on his face, uncompromising as she made him look. Understand. He’s twelve and his arm aches from the fractured and broken arm, his mouth hot and dry from the medication that made the dull ache move from screaming to manageable.

“It was an accident.” She tells him. Her fingers gripping into his flesh, warm hugs, and cookies filled with gooey stuff. The kind she started making after she fired their maid. After he cried for her warmth, too. Her breath hitches as she, almost as though she’s asking him in her tentative unsure but firm way, “Wasn’t it, Gregory?”

He nods quickly, knowing exactly what will happen if it wasn’t. “An accident. It was an accident.”

She smiles and brings him close, warmth encircling and ensnaring him as his eyes turn to the twisted face of his father’s.

After the cops come, he goes out back with the weed his friend Marcus left behind, a wink and a nod saying that this would help his arm. As he takes a drag, long and deep, he finds that it helps more than just with the physical pain. It helps with the psychological, too.

He stammers telling the police his statement, nervous and on edge, and that never really fades. Except now he’s in a billionaire’s airplane and he’s looking in a mirror, and he’s putting himself in the firing line. His mother, too, maybe. Although, she’s in Canada, but she always told him, that he is the most important thing to her, like ever. How will she feel if his body’s discovered a few days later when Uncle Logan decides it’s his time to, ‘die?’

He huffs in some more of the burning down his throat and puts it out with a stamp of his boot. He splashes cold water on his face, and sees his father’s twisted one in the mirror. His arm aches sometimes, when it rains. But the psychological, he can take it. He wasn’t dicking around with Kendall when he said that he could. He can take it all.

But maybe it’s time that he started dishing out some of his own.

He walks out and Kendall looks up. “You ready, man?”

Greg smiles and gives him a nervous thumbs up, and Kendall laughs, ducking his head in nervous energy, too, as they finally land.

Greg holds the papers close as Kendall sits in front of the world and kills his dad, or at the very least, mortally wounds him. Now if only Greg had the gall to do the same all those years ago. Then maybe his mother wouldn’t cry so much. Take so much of her medication. Loopy and lost, and filled with longing and regret. Maybe the world would be a better place. Maybe he can make it that way. Maybe it’s time that he was on top.

Kendall walks by and pats him on the arm, guiding him out with the reporter’s on their heels. “We did good.”

Greg has sworn his allegiance to Kendall, but what Kendall doesn’t know is that his hand was behind his back, fingers crossed extremely so. He smiles all the same though and nods, with a duck of his head, nervous because this is just the first step of many. “You think? Thanks, man.” They step into a black limousine and Greg watches the fire in Kendall’s eyes, his own long since kindled.

“So, what’s our next move?” He leans in and asks with the excitement of a puppy, but within, he’s playing a chess game. Mapping out all the next movements, his own in turn. And he thinks of Tom, and how maybe he has a place for him, too, after this is all over. He’s going to hate him now, but that’s okay. He can take it. And Tom can’t hate him forever, Greg’s already tested that theory. In fact he’s already tested quite a few.

_“I can take a lot in terms of psychological pain.”_

“Now, Greg… We try to dodge the shit that’s going to fly.”

Greg smiles and nods. “Y- yeah, okay.” And he thinks, because this is sort of the Roy’s problems, isn’t it? They can’t take the shit that flies, can’t accept it either, can’t grip and hold on until it turns to gold. _Make it into gold._ And he can.

He came down here to cash in a favour, and now look at him. He’s made it this far, he’ll make it farther. He took throwing up in his costume to now, and so what if he knew about the birthday before he got sick before he had the blunt. The plan he formed, that was _him_. He’d like to see any of the Roy kids pull that off, _this._ He’d like to see them be so patient.

Maybe it skips a generation, eh?

He lets out a deep breath and sits back as the limousine rides on, eyes slipping shut into the new era of _his_ day.

“I can’t wait to see Logan’s face.”

“I can’t wait to see, Tom’s.” He laughs awkwardly, covering up how much he means it. He’s a bumbling idiot, remember? He has to remind himself sometimes.

“Yeah, he was pretty awful to you, wasn’t he?”

Greg shrugs. “No worse than anyone else here, I- I mean not that you’re worse.”

“Is that why you sided with me?”

“Maybe a little.” He laughs, letting Kendall think it was all because of simple revenge. “And- and I mean, you are really good, you have- have the best plan, m- moving forward.”

_Strategize Greg, strategize._

Kendall laughs some more and holds out his fist, Greg fists bumps with him. Smiling, because he’ll ride Kendall as long as he can. A means to an end, and all that.

And would you look at that? The sun is just rising up.

_It will all work out, just fine. Just fine._

He leans back and slips his shades on before Kendall, or anyone else can.

After all, he’s a Roy just as much as he is a Hirsch.


End file.
